S. Somanath, Chairman of ISRO and Secretary of the Department of Space, said ISRO’s launch vehicle capability was three-times the demand.
Many experts in the spaceflight sector and beyond interpreted this to mean the space launch market was grim
The Indian space programme used to follow a supply-driven model: ISRO would build and launch satellites and then look for customers who needed the services provided by the satellites.
When the Indian government reformed the space sector in 2019-2020, it changed this to a demand-driven model.
Here, a satellite needs to be built and launched only if there is already demand for it. This may have led to the situation Mr. Somanath mentioned.
India’s launch vehicles are also not powerful enough to undertake certain missions like Chandrayaan 4.
China used its Long March 5 launch vehicle to launch its Chang’e 4 and Chang’e 5 missions in a single launch.
India’s LVM-3 has less than one-third of Long March 5’s capability (28% to be more precise) and will need two LVM-3 launches to launch all the components of Chandrayaan 4.
India will also need one more successful flight of the SSLV to be confident about its ability to launch smaller satellites.
Smaller satellites are usually experimental and university-built.
More success in this domain will encourage space companies to build larger satellites, eventually leading to a demand for launch vehicle
All these launch vehicles will need satellites to launch.
The heavier vehicles can fulfil some national goals like lunar exploration and a space station while ISRO can use the smaller satellites for technology and capability demonstration.
However, the latter will constitute only a small number of launches.
We need an ecosystem that creates demand for various services, leading to a demand for data, leading to more sources of data (like satellites), culminating in a demand for launch vehicles.
The richer the ecosystem, the greater the demand.
The Indian government wants the private sector to create demand among customers and to build and launch satellites.
It wants them to look for services to offer customers in India and abroad.
It also wants revenue by providing launch services of its own.
Finally, the government wants to upskill workers and give them jobs.
However, private companies don’t want the government to be in the launch business.
Instead, they want the government to be their customer and to provide rule of law and reliable regulations.
This is because private players desire a reliable source of revenue, which the Indian government can be over a long period of time
The roadmap here is for the government to exit the launch vehicle business at some point, leaving the companies with sufficient demand for launch vehicles.
This is similar to the situation in the U.S., where arms of the U.S. government award contracts to SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. to execute launches with their payloads.
Thus, the Indian government will absorb the cost of the transition from supply-driven to demand-driven building of satellites and launch vehicles
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